Middlesbrough Borough Council (18 018 357)

Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 10 Apr 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about a Council error which led to the complainant wrongly receiving a court summons for council tax. This is because the Council has provided a proportionate response and there is not enough remaining injustice to require an investigation.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, complains she wrongly received a court summons for council tax arrears. She wants compensation and for the Council to change its procedures.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if we believe:
  • the Council has already provided a proportionate response; or
  • the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I considered comments Mrs X made in response to a draft of this decision.

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What I found

  1. Landlords are liable for the council tax for any period when a property is empty.
  2. If someone does not pay their council tax the Council can issue a court summons and apply to the magistrates for a liability order. A liability order is a court order confirming the person must pay the council tax. A liability order does not affect someone’s credit reference.

What happened

  1. Mrs X owns a property which she rents to tenants. It is managed by an agent. In September the agent told the Council the tenant had left. The Council closed the tenant’s account and opened an account in Mrs X’s name. The Council incorrectly set up the account as though Mrs X was living in the rented property (which she was not). It issued a council tax bill. Mrs X did not pay the first instalment because she did not receive the bill. The Council then issued a reminder and a court summons. Mrs X was unaware of what was happening.
  2. In November the agent told the Council that new tenants had moved in. As a consequence of this information the Council realised its error. It withdrew the summons and cancelled the costs. It set up an account for the new tenants and sent Mrs X a new bill from September to November. This time it sent the bill to the correct address.
  3. In response to Mrs X’s complaint the Council apologised for sending the documents to the wrong address. It confirmed the summons was withdrawn and no liability order issued. It said it had spoken to the court who explained that Mrs X’s name could not be deleted from the summons list. The Council did not pay compensation as Mrs X had requested.
  4. Mrs X wants the Council to change its procedures so that cases are manually checked before a summons is issued. She says her name and character have been damaged and she has been made to look like a bad debtor. Mrs X wants compensation.

Assessment

  1. There was fault by the Council. It did not send the council tax bill, reminder and summons to the correct address. Mrs X was unaware of the payment requests so could not pay. However, while there was fault, I will not start an investigation because the Council has provided a proportionate response and there is not enough remaining injustice to require an investigation. The Council apologised, explained what went wrong, and withdrew the summons and the costs. It also tried to get Mrs X deleted from the summons list but this was not possible.
  2. Mrs X wants compensation. But, the injustice does not warrant this. Mrs X has not incurred a financial loss and the summons was withdrawn. The court list was just a long list of names and it is unlikely many people would have been aware of Mrs X’s inclusion. I appreciate Mrs X’s has links with the court service but, even then, it is unlikely her reputation would have been damaged, as she suggests.
  3. Mrs X wants the Council to manually check an account before issuing a summons. However, council tax is largely an automated process and councils do not have the resources to check every account.

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Final decision

  1. I will not start an investigation because the Council has provided a proportionate response and there is not enough remaining injustice to require an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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